This invention relates to a horseshoe made from an elastically deformable material, and in particular to such a horseshoe which has a plurality of hard wear pads located in its lower surface.
While the traditional U-shaped metal or hard plastic horseshoe protects horses hooves, it has several disadvantages. First, it has no resiliency, and, as a result, its use on hard surfaces can be stressful on the horse""s legs. In addition, a metal or plastic shoe gets poor traction on hard surfaces, such as concrete or asphalt. Horses who spend a significant amount of time on these surfaces and must change directions rapidly can easily slip and injure themselves. This is a particular problem with mounted police horses. In addition, metal or plastic horseshoes can cause considerable damage to surfaces such as asphalt. A metal or plastic horseshoe also leaves the center portion of the hoof exposed so that it can be injured if the horse steps on a protruding object. In particular the frog located at the back of the hoof is left exposed. Not only do traditional metal or plastic horseshoes leave the frog exposed, they raise the frog above the ground surface so that the frog cannot serve its intended purpose.
Horseshoes made of rubber or an elastomeric material have been used to overcome the foregoing shortcomings of traditional metal or plastic horseshoes. However, if a horseshoe is simply made from rubber or a similar material, it will wear so quickly that it would be impractical. To prevent this rapid wear the prior art horseshoes of this type incorporate canvas or similar material or metal into the material they are made of. While this increases the life of the horseshoe it makes construction difficult and the resulting horseshoe expensive. Moreover, most of the prior art composite horseshoes wear unevenly or wear varies from horseshoe to horseshoe. Thus, rubber or elastomeric horseshoes have not been widely accepted.
The subject invention overcomes the foregoing shortcomings and limitations of prior art horseshoes by providing a horseshoe made from an elastically deformable material which has a tread portion with a plurality of hollow cylindrical buttons which are open at their upper ends and are covered at their lower ends with a thin film of material. The horseshoe is attached to the horse""s hoof with an adhesive and sufficient adhesive is used to fill the buttons and provide a thin layer of adhesive material between the hoof and the horseshoe. When the horse walks on the shoe, the thin film at the bottom of the buttons wears off exposing the adhesive. The adhesive buttons prevent the shoe from wearing rapidly without materially affecting the dampening and skid resistant characteristics of the elastic material.